


Decompression

by nancypants (cah_avengers)



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: M/M, look I just need these idiots to talk, possible end of the world drama, takes place immediately after terms and conditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 10:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13005468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cah_avengers/pseuds/nancypants
Summary: In which Kepler joining the Sol's new crew uninvited is just an excuse to check on Jacobi.





	Decompression

Rachel starts pulling up files on the Sol’s impressive visual display. 

Lovelace and Minkowski share a look, then stare up at the screens. Eiffel looks like he’s about to have a heart attack. 

Warren crosses the room to where Jacobi lies on a cot, pointedly ignoring his presence. Warren kicks a crate closer to the cot and sits down. 

“That seat’s taken,” Jacobi deadpans, staring past Warren toward the display.

Warren rolls his eyes, but keeps his mouth shut. Jacobi needs to see and hear everything Rachel is saying anyway. He needs to understand the gravity of their mission here. Why there have been so many secrets. 

Once Rachel finishes, Minkowski, Lovelace, and Eiffel move to the far corner to discuss together. They all look shell-shocked, conflicted. 

Warren looks down at Jacobi, who looks annoyed at being left behind by his new crew.

“I’m glad you’re all right,” Warren says. 

“Shut up.”

“Daniel."

“Why are you here? Rachel was going to show us all of this whether or not you had shown up to be dramatic about it. Wouldn’t you rather be with robot mom and vampire dad?”

“Actually, no. I’d rather be here.”

Jacobi huffs. “Well I’m not too crazy about it.”

“Yeah…if only you had let me die.”

Jacobi goes silent, suddenly more uncomfortable than he already was. 

“You considered it, right? All of those times you missed your target..those weren’t accidental.”

“Only the first time,” Jacobi clarifies, lifting his chin and trying to convey indifference.

“Thought so.” Warren stares down at his artificial hand, tracing his fingers over the patterns in the musculature. “So why’d you change your mind?”

Jacobi scoffs. “You’re fishing for something I’m not about to give you, Warren. You know, you weren’t the only one aboard. Not everything I do is about you.”

“So, what, you had a change of heart because you just couldn’t bear to let _Eiffel_ and _Minkowski_ die? Please.”

“Maybe I did! You know, they’ve been surprisingly cool to me even after everything we’ve done to each other. Because they’re decent people. They even negotiated with Cutter to get me back. How crazy is that?”

“So you would’ve let it go if it had just been Pryce and myself.”

Jacobi shrugs. “Probably.”

Warren folds his arms and looks away. He isn’t used to such blatant apathy from the man, especially concerning his life. “When are you going to be done being mad at me?”

Jacobi laughs. “Oh my god, don’t. You deserve my anger.”

“You must see why the secrecy was necessary now.”

“No, actually I don’t. The only reason you’d keep anything from Alana and me is distrust. You didn’t think we’d stay behind you if you were forthcoming about the circumstances. You didn’t trust us and that’s fine. But don’t look so fucking hurt that I don’t look at you with stars in my eyes any more.”

Jacobi sits up and swings his legs over the side of the cot to rest them on the floor. As he struggles to stand, adjusting to gravity and fighting against the pain of the bullet wound in his thigh, Warren sits quietly watching. Once Jacobi finally straightens himself out, he sighs deeply.

“I don’t like it.”

“Excuse me?” Jacobi asks, turning to look down at Warren.

“I don’t like the way you look at me any more. It doesn’t feel…good.”

“Wow, Kepler. What you’re experiencing right now is called ‘feelings.’ Possibly guilt and loneliness. I’m so proud.”

Warren has the urge to insult Jacobi and walk away from this conversation feeling victorious. If he doesn’t, Jacobi will.

“Sometimes people have feelings. And they deal with them. They don’t make it someone else’s problem to solve them. Or…comfort them if that’s what you’re looking for here.”

Warren doesn’t know what to say. He watches Jacobi limp away toward the other three. 

“Hey, you guys forget I’m here?”

Rachel approaches, and Warren sits up straighter. “What’s got you looking so down in the dumps, Warren? Everything we’ve worked toward is just over the horizon.”

“I’m perfectly fine, Ms. Young. Though I do appreciate your concern.”

She has the same smile as Cutter. “Is this about Mr. Jacobi? You know, Cutter had to make a last minute decision. He couldn’t let this little opportunity just slip away, could he?”

“Shooting him wasn’t necessary.”

“Are you…questioning the call he made, Colonel?”

Warren takes a deep breath. “No, I’m not.”

“Wait…this is about something else. You and Daniel have never been on opposite sides of a line like this, have you? I mean sure you’ve had your spats, but…this is different. There’s no coming back from this.”

“We’re all cooperating together. They’ll come to their senses and see that sides are irrelevant.”

“Even if that’s the case…he’s not on  _ your _ side any more.”

Warren’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, for the first time in your relationship, he’s not behaving like your obedient little puppy. In fact, it seems like he can’t even stand to be around you.”

“As long as the mission is on track, that doesn’t matter—“

“Oh come on, Warren. Everyone knows that’s not true.”

“What the hell do you think you know?” Warren stands now, squaring his shoulders.

Rachel smirks, her demeanor so easy and unfazed. “You’re so obvious. Have been for years.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Rachel.”

“Jacobi’s recruitment anniversary…I reminded you about it and Cutter said he wouldn’t mind if you did a little something to celebrate the occasion. We kind of expected you to get him a cake or take him to a nice bar, but what did you do? You let him put on his own unregulated fireworks display in the middle of the night, prompting hundreds of citizens to make calls to the police. Remember that cleanup? It wasn’t fun.”

“Daniel doesn’t like cake.”

“So you spent thousands of dollars of Goddard’s money on fireworks instead. Warren, you took him on every mission you could even if he made no difference in reaching the objective. God, it is  _ adorable _ how oblivious you are to your own weakness.”

“I value and appreciate my agents, Ms. Young,” Warren insists. “Now, do you have a point? Or did you come over here just to annoy me?”

“My point is…I’m sorry to see you two break up. You were kind of cute.” She smiles and pats his shoulder. “Just don’t let your feelings get in the way of our objective.”

He wrinkles his nose and shrugs off her hand. He’s never let sentiment get in the way of anything. Except when he let Eiffel go after finding him hiding, implant no longer working. But that was just because he wanted Daniel to snap out of it too. Daniel was a rational man, and there had been no reason for Pryce to give him an implant. Never mind the fact that it led to an emergency and near-disaster. “Don’t worry about me, Ms. Young. Just do your job and I’ll do mine.”

“Sounds great, Warren.” She looks over at Daniel then back at Warren with a brow raised suggestively. 

Warren doesn’t need to be on the Sol; Daniel was right about that. For personal reasons, he had to see that Jacobi was fine, and now that he knew he was, there was no reason for him to stay.

He walks back toward the airlock, but falters in his stride as Jacobi calls out “Kepler!”

Warren turns back to see Jacobi, flanked by the others from the Hephaestus, watching him expectantly. Rachel is leaning back against a console with her arms folded, watching with interest.

“Need to speak to you for a moment.”

“Fine…let’s make it quick,” Warren replies, already walking past everyone to a separate room for privacy. He doesn’t particularly want Rachel watching his every move and interaction with Jacobi.

When Jacobi finally enters the room, he looks irritated. “I was shot, remember? Could’ve given me a moment to catch up.”

“What do you want?”

Daniel raises his brows. “Damn, all right. Let’s just get down to business then.”

Warren folds his arms and leans back against a desk. 

“What’s your plan here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I  _ mean _ , why did you help Eiffel? What are you playing at? Before we walk into the hell that’s awaiting us, I want to know what the long game is.”

“I don’t have a plan except for the one that Ms. Young just conveniently laid out for all of you,” Warren insists. 

“Bullshit.”

“Christ, Daniel. I know I’ve kept shit from you, but I haven’t been in the habit of lying to your face. I let Eiffel go because he figured out how to get around the implant. I assumed he’d use that knowledge to help you. And he did. So it seems I made the right call. May I leave now?”

“It really backfired, didn’t it?” Jacobi looks smug. 

“You’re right; very astute observation, Mr. Jacobi. I did not expect Minkowski and Eiffel to be stupid enough to jettison us toward the star.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about me.”

Warren sighs. “Can you just cut to the chase? I’m not in the mood to guess what you mean.”

“If you wanted me to stay loyal, you should’ve turned Eiffel in. Because I’d still have my implant.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Warren stands and walks past him to the door.

Daniel grabs his arm. “Hey. I’m not done.”

He doesn’t bother to pull his arm away. “Well  _ I  _ am. I don’t expect you to believe that my intentions were selfless. But I am not going to humor you if you want to stand there and insinuate I’d prefer you effectively _lobotomized_.”

Jacobi lets go. “…Fine.”

Warren sighs and looks him over. Between the bullet wound and the mental turmoil of Alana’s death, he looks wrecked: tired, pale, weak.

“Are we all going to die up here?”

“There’s a good chance,” Warren admits.

The anger slowly dissipates from Jacobi’s expression. “At this point I don’t think I mind.”

“Daniel…”

“We all knew the risks when we joined. Honestly, who else can say their death was this exciting? Aliens and evil organizations…it’s better than being shot. Better than going home and dying old and bored with life.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“No, I really do. Alana and I used to romanticize dying for the cause. But of course, only after we’d accomplish something that would change the world. Now with her gone, the only way I’m going to make a difference is if I’m involved in this. So if I die…so be it.”

Warren huffs. “God, you’re so…stupid.”

“Excuse me? What’s the problem? You said there’s a good chance of us dying. Isn’t it better that I’ve accepted the likely?”

“No! You’re not supposed to be resigned to it. You’re supposed to defy the odds and go home safe. So stop talking like that.”

Jacobi raises a brow. “What’s the point? Alana is gone.”

“And trust me when I say she’d agree with me on this point. This isn’t all you have to offer the world.”

“…careful there, Colonel. You almost sound like you’re being sentimental.”

Warren runs a hand through his hair. “Just don’t be stupid, all right? You can still walk away from this unscathed.”

“Fine…sorry.”

Daniel looks small again. Like he does when Warren is giving him orders he’d rather not carry out.

Warren suddenly feels guilty. He grabs Daniel and hugs him. 

Daniel goes rigid, arms held slightly out to his sides as if he has no idea how a hug works. 

Warren holds him tighter, which elicits a groan. 

“Ow..”

Warren’s hold loosens slightly, allows Daniel to shift his leg away, but he doesn’t let go. Nothing is ever going to be the same, whether they all make it out of this or not, so Warren allows himself this moment of sentimentality. 

Daniel doesn’t wrap his arms around Warren, but eventually he relaxes, leans into Warren’s chest.

“I can’t fix anything. But I want you to know I’m sorry.”

“About what? You’ll have to be more specific,” Daniel grumbles, but nonetheless tilts his head, pressing his face into the crook of Warren’s neck. After recent events, it feels good to be held, even if it’s by Kepler.

“Everything.” This feels good for Warren for entirely different reasons. It feels good to drop the controlled persona who feels no remorse for making hard decisions. It feels good to hold Daniel, though it’s such a small and simple gesture.

“I’m going to assume that includes the  _ hilarious _ pranks you were so fond of pulling on us.”

“Yes, fine. I’m sorry for those too.”

“You going back to the Sol now?”

Warren lifts a hand to touch Daniel’s hair, but thinks better of it. “I think I should. Ms. Young and I aren’t the best of friends.”

“And you and Cutter are?”

“Things are too tense for Cutter to do his usual button pushing, but apparently Rachel is unaffected.”

Daniel nods and pulls himself out of Warren’s arms. “So…I don’t know what’s going to happen. I can’t promise there will be a place for you once we try to leave.”

“That’s…fine. I didn’t expect anything like that.”

“But there might be. I’ll try to convince them.”

“You don’t have to…just focus on the objective.”

“Now you’re the one being stupid. You wanna be stuck with Pryce and Cutter or do you want to go home with us?”

"You actually want that, Jacobi?"

"Believe it or not, I think I'd prefer that to you dying or returning to your old bullshit and subjecting new agents to your nonsense."

Warren smiles. The offer is more than tempting, but “there’s more work to be done.”

“And they’ll find someone else to do it. You have a choice, Warren,” Jacobi sighs. “Cutter said, anyone who wishes to board the Sol, and has Minkowski’s consent, may join us.”

“I’ll consider it. But uh…Jacobi? Am I oblivious?”

That makes Jacobi pause. “Where is this coming from?”

“Rachel said something about me. That I had an obvious weakness that I was oblivious to. I was just wondering if you noticed it too.”

Jacobi looks away, his brow furrowed while he thinks. “Huh…think I might have an idea.”

“And when did you notice?”

Jacobi looks like he’s fighting back a smile. “I just put it together a second ago. It’s kinda funny...Incredibly stupid and ironic.”

“Daniel?”

Jacobi takes a deep breath and looks back at him. “You know I think you’re a real asshole, right?”

“I do.”

“Well as long as you don’t have any misconceptions about my feelings…” Daniel wraps a hand around the back of Warren’s neck and pulls him down into a kiss. Only a chaste brush of his lips, and before Warren can react, Daniel is already pulling away to leave the room. 

“Wait. You’re gonna kiss me and then walk away like that? That doesn’t seem fair.”

“I just felt sorry for you, what with you realizing I’m your weakness.” Daniel places a hand on his chest, putting on a display of mock concern. 

“You’re a brat,” Warren says, as if it’s the first time he’s noticed. It’s not.

“Yeah.”

“And full of shit.”

Daniel comes back to stand in front of Warren. “Definitely…Look, this isn’t forgiveness or anything. But I'm tired, and we might die, right?” He takes Warren’s face in his hands, which feels strange, too soft for people like them. “So what’s the harm?”

Warren nods and leans in to meet Daniel’s mouth. He doesn’t mind waiting for forgiveness.

He smirks and deepens the kiss, thinking how a first kiss on the eve of Armageddon is more  _ his _ brand of drama, that Daniel didn’t quite nail the execution.

Daniel doesn’t expect this boldness, but he holds on, thumbs braced along either side of  Warren’s jaw, fingers threading into his hair.

Warren’s not going to let this happen and then fade just as quickly like some inconsequential moment. Fuck Rachel, fuck Cutter and Pryce. He doesn’t care any more. He is going to mark Daniel. This may be his last chance. He presses Daniel against the wall, thanking the simulated gravity of the Sol for allowing him this pleasure. 

Daniel whines a little when the movement sends dull waves of pain radiating from his thigh, but he doesn’t pull away. His lips part and Warren’s tongue traces the shape of them before pressing into his mouth.

Warren bites and sucks on his lips, and Daniel knows that what’s happening in here will be obvious to everyone once he walks back out onto the bridge. His lips will be red and his hair will be sticking out in odd places. He wants to return the favor, make Warren feel his shame, but lips are traveling to his neck now and all he can do is shut his eyes tight, hands moving to grab at Warren's hair, and tilt his head back for easier access. He knows that convincing Minkowski to let Warren aboard for their journey home will be more difficult when, after one look at him, she’ll know he’s not quite unbiased when it comes to the colonel. But he stops caring because his heart is pounding and he can hear the blood rushing in his ears. He knows Warren can feel his frenzied pulse against his lips and the thought makes Daniel’s stomach flutter in the most pleasant way.

Warren leaves bite marks on Daniel’s neck that will fade quickly, but remain long enough to be obvious when they leave the room. He leaves faint pink marks along his neck, then takes his time sucking a hickey into the base of Daniel’s throat. Warren’s lips linger there, smiling against the vibration of a moan in Daniel's throat. He finally pulls back to admire the red blush of bursted capillaries on Daniel’s skin. 

Daniel’s eyes open and he looks up at Warren. He looks a little put-out by his stopping.

Warren would like nothing more than to take this as far as Daniel will let him, but he probably should have been back on the Hephaestus ten minutes ago.

“Satisfied with your work?” Daniel asks, and Warren can’t help but grin. Daniel looks even more wrecked, but there’s plenty of color in his face now, his pupils dilated wide.

“I am.” Warren kisses him once, softly, too tenderly. He lingers a moment longer than he means to, then pulls back.

Daniel’s already looking at him. “I still kind of hate you.”

“It’s only fair.”

“You two may want to get back to the bridge before someone comes after you.” Hera’s voice is suddenly surrounding them and they tense. She’s so skilled at evoking the image of an eye roll through audio alone.

Daniel wasn’t planning on playing coy about what happened here, but the thought of Hera being completely aware of the whole thing makes his cheeks burn. 

Warren laughs and Daniel relaxes slightly. “Yeah, good idea.” 

Warren wraps an arm around Daniel’s waist and helps him back out to the bridge. 

Eiffel is the first to notice their approach and he turns to face them. “Jacobi, are you o—… _ oh _ .”

“What?” Minkowski looks. She sucks in a breath. “Took your time, didn’t you? I think it’s time for you to go back, Kepler.”

Lovelace snorts and looks at Daniel like they share a private joke. 

“Ten-four, commander. I’ll be on my way.” He smiles pleasantly and turns to leave. 

Rachel’s gaze lingers on Jacobi’s neck, then passes over Kepler, looking at him with a mixture of surprise and amusement. She looks smug about being right, but also a little disappointed Warren is no longer wallowing in self pity. She leans over and presses the button for the comms. “Don’t worry, Mr. Cutter, Colonel Kepler is on his way back now.”

“Warren…what’s taking you so long, hm?” Cutter’s voice questions through the speakers. 

“Oh, I just needed a moment to decompress from that extremely tense hostage negotiation, Sir. Don’t you worry about me; I’ll be right there. By the way, Sir, I must say Ms. Young is doing a  _ wonderful _ job over here.”

“Warren, shut up and get back here. Pretty please.” Cutter closes the comms channel. 

Rachel rolls her eyes and finally turns back to the console.

Warren spares a glance back toward the Hephaestus crew. Lovelace is hiking up the collar of Daniel’s suit, who’s frowning and leaning away. Minkowski is glaring at Warren, arms folded. Eiffel asks some question that makes Daniel groan and look at the ceiling. 

Warren smiles to himself and steps into the airlock.


End file.
